The Greatest of These
by brihana25
Summary: Dean/Castiel missing scene from Abandon All Hope - It's their last night on Earth, and Dean has a promise to keep. One-shot. Slash. COMPLETE


**FANDOM: **Supernatural  
**TITLE: **The Greatest of These  
**GENRE: **Slash  
**CATEGORY: **Angst  
**SEASON: **Five - a missing scene from Abandon All Hope  
**RATING: **PG-13  
**WORD COUNT: **3178

**SUMMARY: **It's their last night on Earth, and Dean has a promise to keep.

**DISCLAIMER: **Supernatural, its characters and situations, are copyright Eric Kripke and Warner Bros. Entertainment (The CW). No infringement on, or challenge to, their status is intended. This piece of fiction was written strictly for the entertainment of other fans, and I am gaining no form of compensation for it.  
**MORE DISCLAIMERS: **This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or actual places and locations, is purely coincidental.

Criticism and feedback of all kinds is welcome. Anonymous comments welcomed and encouraged, too. :)

**WARNINGS: **just a bit of language

* * *

It was wet on the other side of the windshield - wet and cold and miserable - and he didn't want to get out. He wanted to stay where he was, warm and dry in the Impala, with the leather seat comfortable against his back and the steering wheel so familiar in his hands. He wanted to close his eyes and go back to what he'd been doing before he'd been pulled out of his bed in the middle of the damn night.

He wanted to sleep.

But he couldn't. He'd been summoned by Castiel for some higher purpose that Cas, as usual, hadn't bothered to explain to him. He could see the angel already out of the car and standing in the rain, his hair and coat still somehow dry despite the steady downpour, staring back at him through the windshield with an expression on his face that was somewhere between mild irritation and full-blown anger. He looked impatient about his plans for the night, whatever they were, and Dean wasn't surprised. His nerves were more than a little on edge, too.

They were holed up at Bobby's house for the night, and in the morning, they were taking on the devil himself. Everyone else had been sound asleep when Cas shook him awake, even Bobby and Sam, and none of them stirred when he and Cas walked past them on their way out. But they were walking into the fight of their lives in less than ten hours, and they needed to go into it with as much strength as they could gather. And there'd been a lot of drinking before they'd gone to sleep; even Cas had joined in.

Maybe it was a side effect of the whole 'not all angel anymore' thing.

With a deep sigh and a shake of his head, Dean opened the car door and stepped out into the rain.

It took him all of thirty seconds to get soaked clean through his clothes. He lifted his head slowly and looked across the hood of the Impala at Cas. The trees around them were doing a fantastic job of making a dark place even darker - the only light source anywhere near them was the headlights that Cas had told him to leave on - but they weren't doing much to shelter him from the rain. He'd thought the fact that Cas was still dry meant that there wasn't much reaching the ground, but he'd obviously been wrong about that.

He frowned when he noticed that Cas had moved closer to him and was suddenly standing at his side, only inches away. The angel was still perfectly dry, his hair sticking up in that 'just got out of bed' look that he'd managed to perfect despite the fact that he never slept. He looked exactly the same as he always did, except... his tie was looser than normal. A lot looser. His cheeks looked flushed, and his eyes - had they always been that bright, or...?

Dean shook his head again and chased the thoughts away.

"So what's so important out here?" he asked.

Cas didn't answer him, just looked back at him without blinking and took another step toward him. With Cas standing so close, Dean became even more aware of the rain pounding down on them - or rather, on him. His hair was flat against his head, hanging down across his forehead, and his shirts clung to his skin uncomfortably. He could feel the water running down his face and the back of his neck, making him shudder as it ran down his spine, and through it all, Cas was still dry. But in the glow of the headlights, Dean could clearly see the color on his cheeks, and yes, his eyes were brighter than he'd ever seen them before. The shots he'd downed must have hit him harder than Dean thought.

Cas moved even closer, Dean felt his heart speed up, and he swallowed hard. He couldn't bring himself to look Cas directly in the eye at the distance, so he looked down at the ground, only glancing up every now and then.

He shouldn't feel like this, and he knew it. No matter what Cas' nearness did to him, he had to hide it. He was an angel, after all, a freakin' angel of the Lord, and Dean knew that he didn't have the right to feel what he felt. What was left of his soul after everything he'd been through wasn't worthy of that kind of attention, and if he was telling the truth, he never had been.

Their relationship had always been an intense one, but Dean figured it probably had to be, seeing as how they'd met when Cas had literally pulled his ass out of Hell, but the effect that intensity had on him had been changing. He'd been fighting it for months, ignoring it, controlling it, and he thought he'd been doing a good job of hiding it.

But damn it, Cas kept moving toward him, and he was making it so damn hard to breathe.

Dean cleared his throat and turned his eyes toward the trees behind Cas' shoulder. "What are we doing out here?"

The question was meant to be strong and steady, but his emotions had left his voice shaking so badly that it came out barely a whisper.

Cas leaned forward until his cheek was barely an inch from Dean's.

"Finding God," he answered.

Dean froze in place, his heart pounding in his chest and his rapid, shaking breaths catching in his throat. He felt Cas' lips lightly brush the tip of his ear, felt his warm breath against the side of his neck, felt his fingers brush innocently against the outside of his thigh.

"Follow me."

Cas pulled away and walked past him, moving deeper into the woods. Dean glanced after him briefly, then drew a ragged breath, closed his eyes, and let his head fall forward.

"Great idea, Cas," he muttered to himself. He shook his head slowly, then opened his eyes and stared off into the woods again.

"Son of a bitch."

* * *

Dean had been staying at Bobby's house off and on since he was six or seven years old, playing in and around the old cars and ramshackle sheds, and if he'd ever had a real home aside from the Impala, Bobby's house was it. But he'd never explored much of the woods across the field from the junkyard, and until he and Cas walked through the woods in the faint glow from the Impala's headlights, he had no idea there was a church out there.

There wasn't much left of it, not that it looked like there'd been much to it to start with. The four crumbling stone walls filled with broken windows and less roof than holes that wouldn't provide much shelter from the rain. Dean didn't understand exactly why Cas thought they could find God there, but he followed him, anyway. Cas pushed the heavy splintering door open as far as he could and stepped through it; Dean turned sideways and slipped in behind him.

Cas kept moving, walking towards the front of the church at a determined pace, and Dean followed along behind him. The angel clearly had a purpose in bringing him here, but he had yet to tell him exactly what it was.

"Ya know, Cas," he finally said, as they neared the centre of the aisle. "We've kinda got a big day tomorrow."

"I am aware," Cas answered.

"That whole 'kill the devil' thing?"

"Yes," Cas said. "It is our last night on Earth."

Dean nodded his head. "And you just really wanted to spend it in a falling down church?"

"This is my Father's house, Dean," Cas said. "And you have a promise to keep."

Dean's steps faltered and stopped, and he felt a lump form in his throat. He'd only ever made one promise that might require him to step into a church to keep, and he couldn't deal with the thought of Cas wanting him to follow through with it. "No," he said softly. "Don't you do this to me, Cas. Not now. Don't you dare."

Cas turned toward him smoothly and tilted his head slightly in confusion.

"I swore to serve God and His angels, I know, but that was before I knew what that meant. And from where I'm standing right now, you're the only one that qualifies."

Cas walked back toward him slowly. "You thought I brought you here to make you say yes to Michael?"

Dean scratched at his head absently, then ran his fingers through his hair and tried to shake some of the rain that still fell on him through the collapsing roof. "You didn't?"

"No," Cas answered, shaking his head in denial as he stepped closer. "No, Dean, I will never do that to you. I won't ask you to give yourself to my brother. I won't allow you to, either."

"Oh." Dean blinked rapidly, then wiped away the rain that ran into his eyes. "So, what promise...?"

There was a flash of what looked like lightning inside the church, and he jumped in surprise. He tipped his head back and looked up, and he wasn't at all surprised to see the shadow of wings against what remained of the ceiling. That was when he realized that though it was still raining steadily in the church around them, it wasn't raining on him anymore.

"That's how you do that," he said.

"I thought that since you're keeping your promise to me tonight, the least I could do is share the shelter of my wings with you."

Dean looked away from the ceiling and back down at Castiel, shaking his head in confusion. "You keep talking about this promise, but I don't..."

And suddenly Cas was right in front of him, only inches away, so close that Dean could feel his breath on his face, with his hands tangled in his over-shirt, pulling him even closer. He barely had time to realize how close Cas was, let alone react to it, before the angel's lips were pressed against his, and there was nothing left to think about.

Cas moved one hand from his shirtfront to the back of his head, fingers sliding through his hair, wrist against the back of his neck, pressing their lips more tightly together. Dean felt himself moving as Cas slowly pushed him backward, until he felt the pillar that marked the edge of the aisle against his back, and there was nowhere left to go but forward.

His hands were against the sides of Cas' face and he couldn't remember how they got there, and he didn't really care. All he cared about was how close they were, the warmth of Cas' body pressed against him, the wings that spread out above them and sheltered them from the falling rain, the way it felt when Cas' tongue flitted across his lips. He parted those lips in response, wrapped one hand around the blue silk tie, and kissed back even more deeply than before. It felt so right, so perfect, and he'd waited so long, and why had he been fighting it...

It hit him like a bolt of lightning, the realization of what he was doing. His eyes shot open, he pressed his hands against the angel's chest, and pushed him away.

"No," he whispered brokenly as he raised his hand to cover his mouth. He was suddenly very, very grateful for the pillar at his back, because he was certain it was the only thing keeping him on his feet.

Cas looked back at him, his face flushed a deeper red than before, his blue eyes wider and brighter than Dean had ever seen them. "I've upset you," he said. "I've misunderstood, gone too far. I'm so..."

"No," Dean argued, shaking his head. "No, it's not... you didn't do anything wrong. It's just..." Dean pushed away from the pillar and walked away from it, and from Cas, as quick as his shaking knees and wobbly legs would carry him. His thoughts were swirling in his head so rapidly that he didn't even notice he was walking away from the door and toward the altar. "It's not you, Cas. It's me."

"What about you? Have I hurt you?"

"No!" Dean protested again, and he wanted Cas to see it in his face, but he couldn't make himself turn around, couldn't make himself look at Cas again. "It's just, ya know, you and... me. And you're... you. And an angel." He was still walking, pacing aimlessly in a direction that he hoped would take him back to the door. "And you shouldn't... I mean, I shouldn't... and we're here, and..."

"It's our last night on Earth, Dean."

"I know!"

"You seemed to think that dying a virgin would be a bad thing," Cas said from behind him. "You promised that you wouldn't let me."

Dean shook his head. Okay, this he could work with. He wasn't back on solid ground yet, but he had somewhere to start. "Yeah. Yeah, I know I did. And I can fix that for ya, Cas. I can." How the hell had he ended up standing on the altar? "I know a place, right in town, and we can..."

Cas' hands were on him again, this time on his shoulders, spinning him around and forcing him to face him. Dean turned his eyes away, glanced down at the floor, up at the ceiling. It was raining on him again, but this time, Castiel was getting rained on, too. He let himself look at Cas just for a second, but he couldn't hold it, and he looked away again, at the wall behind Cas' shoulder... there was the door!

"I don't want to go to a place in town," Cas said softly.

"But there's..."

"Strangers," Cas said. "People I don't know. People I feel nothing for. It's my understanding that losing one's virginity can and should be a deeply meaningful act."

Dean shook his head and looked down at the floor again. "It can, yeah. Which is why you really don't want it to be like this."

"Like what?"

"In a... falling down church!" Dean spread his arms wide to indicate the building around them. "With me!"

"The church is my Father's house," Cas explained again. "Falling down or not, it's the closest I can come to taking you home to meet my family."

"But it's not... I'm not... God, Cas, you deserve so much more."

Castiel smiled at him, a beautiful smile that made his blue eyes shine. "This is what I want, Dean," he said. His hands were still on Dean's arms, and Dean didn't have to see it to know that one of them was resting directly on top of the mark he'd left behind when he'd rescued Dean from Hell. "You're the one I want."

Dean shook his head again. "No. No, I'm really not. I mean I'm... what I've done and... what's happened..."

"What's been done to you, what you've been forced to do is not who you are," Cas interrupted. "I've known that since I first saw you, when I saw what's in your soul."

"But you're an angel, and I'm..."

"We are two souls, Dean. Created by my Father in His own image and meant to find each other."

"It's not right," Dean protested. "I don't... I shouldn't..."

"Do you want me, Dean?"

"Yes," he whispered. "Oh, God, yes."

"And I want you just as much." Cas smiled again. "So what's the problem?"

"I don't deserve this from you."

Neither of them moved after the words were spoken, and Dean was as surprised to have said them as Cas seemed to be to hear them.

"Oh, Dean."

Cas pulled him close and wrapped his arms around him tightly. Dean wanted to resist, wanted to pull away again, but he found himself sinking into the embrace, into the warmth and comfort he'd found in the arms of someone who honestly cared about him. He felt Cas cheek pressed against his hair, and he turned his face into the angel's neck.

"You deserve this," Cas whispered into his ear. "You don't have to earn love. It's something to be given freely, a gift, from one person to another."

Dean closed his eyes.

"And I give you mine. I always have."

He shook his head in denial, and Cas felt it.

"Faith, hope and love remain," Cas whispered. "And the greatest of these is love."

Dean snorted a light chuckle. "What is that?"

"The word of my Father," Cas answered. He pulled away slightly and wrapped his hand around the back of Dean's neck, leaning forward until the foreheads were pressed together tightly and placing his other hand against the side of Dean's face. "This is not wrong, Dean. Two souls created for each other in Heaven are meant find each other on Earth. And we are those souls. Love like this is ordained by God, from the beginning of time."

Dean stared down at the floor, still trying to wrap his mind around everything Castiel had said. "You..." He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. "You love me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Cas didn't speak, simply pressed his fingers against Dean's jaw and tilted his head back up until they were looking each other right in the eye.

This kiss was softer and sweeter than the last, less passionate but somehow more powerful. Dean didn't fight it, but sank into it, parting his lips willingly and without being asked to. He let the feelings wash over him, stopped denying and controlling them and let them flow through him.

Cas ended the kiss, but didn't move away.

"Because I do."

Dean licked his lips and moved his hands up Cas' chest, finally bringing them to rest against the sides of his neck.

"Ordained by God, huh?"

"Yes."

Dean surrounded himself with the emotions that they were both feeling, embraced them, and forgot about everything else. There was no tomorrow. There was no devil. No Michael, no apocalypse. There was nothing and no one but the church, the rain, and the beautiful and amazing man in his arms.

The man who loved him.

Dean sat down slowly and carefully on the steps the led up to the altar, and Cas followed him down. Dean kissed him again, harder and longer than before, and let his hands roam back down Cas' arms, to his waist, where he tugged at the hem of his white shirt until it came free. He felt Cas' hands running down his back, leaving trails of electricity on his skin wherever they touched.

He had one hand under Cas' shirt, the palm of his hand pressed flat against his chest, and he ended the kiss. He wrapped his hand in the tie again and lay back on the altar.

"His will be done," he said breathlessly, just before Cas' lips claimed his again.


End file.
